Watched Transformers: The Last Knight with the wife this afternoon (bizarrely I think she’s a bigger fan of the film series than I am). It was not good. Maybe, marginally better than the previous installment, but still so bad. The story’s ridiculous; the science preposterous; and, even the action feels dull and uninspired now. Disappointed.

There’s a lot of criticism of Bay but his films (mostly) sell tickets.

I think his signficant problem is his lack of interest or judgement in story or character.

His Benghazi movie, ‘13 Hours’, got better reviews than most of his films. It seems he can tell a story, but needs help sticking to it. He’s another director that needs good writers and a producer who wont let him just blow everything up.

His approach to ‘Transfomers’ though is very clear. Jerrod Carmichael was interviewed recently;

How was it working on a Michael Bay set?

It may have been the single biggest learning experience I have had in my career. A reason I wanted to do the film was to see what a production of that size was like and to see how comedy can translate internationally. You can say a quippy thing or something sarcastic but does that translate to China? Does it play well in India? It’s a skill.

On the first day, I said something that I thought was really funny and I even got the crew laughing but then Michael was like, “If you’re in China, what is that joke?” And I was like, “Oh, you’re right. That joke doesn’t work in China.” So you learn to adjust. You have to think about comedy in a new way and that was a real challenge and I learned so much that hopefully I can apply it to my own work in some type of meaningful way.

That’s interesting that everyone on set is hyper-aware of how the movie will play internationally.

I like that he has a style. It’s becoming increasingly rare, I think. I find it amusing. Like in this new film there is a scene where Stanley Tucci sips from a wine bottle. Somehow we get three different SMASH cuts to different angles of this guy drinking wine. It’s so bizarre. I do kind of like it though. There’s an MTV-era energy to it, a certain optimism, and he has a better eye for detail than he gets credit for. He also understands the Asian market and the HD era better than most, he’s quite savvy.

I don’t have a collection of Bay DVDs at home or anything but I clearly like him more than a lot of people do.

He’s done so little outside of the Transformers movies over the last decade that it’s hard to judge. The Rock and Armageddon are both brilliant in their own ways, I don’t see them being worthy of being shit on. I do wonder though if his style looks old fashioned our out of place now. I think he had a huge influence, but he’s quite like the Rob Liefeld of movies and I can see why he’s so divisive.

Transformers Age of Extinction was where I really saw the Christopher-Reeve-winking-at-the-audience way with which he’s delivering these movies. Goofy stuff that he did with Stanley Tucci like the scene where he’s drinking some Chinese brand of milk on a Hong Kong rooftop or having the characters find dusty old film cameras.
On rewatching the first three, I haven’t found nearly as much of that (though the third does have the Shia job interview montage). If the fifth has more gonzo stuff like that, then I’ll be happy.

I think The Island was an archetypical Michael Bay Movie experience for me. That movie had a fantastic original script, great actors and a central premise that was right in my wheelhouse. And I very much enjoyed the first third of the movie or so.

And then… things started blowing up all over the place and it seemed like nobody cared about the plot anymore. I certainly lost interest. In the whole movie.

I always thought that this must have been a terrible experience for the screenwriter. To have written a really good movie, only for it to be rewritten by hacks (sorry, but that’s what Kurtzman and Orci are) and turned into Explodey Movie.

Bay is not a great director. McDonalds does not make great food. Walmart is not a great store. Coronation Street is not a great TV show. Dan Brown is not a great writer. And yet they make all the money because to many other people these things are great. Oh, well. Back to my cave.

I’m not sure everyone who likes those things loves those things, but they do like them enough to spend money on them.

There’s a maxim in design that you 'Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good."

Bay’s films are (usually) good enough, for a lot of people, to be worth the ticket price. The things they like about them outweigh the things they don’t like. Bay and co. emphasise (as much as they can) the things that matter in that equation.

Or to borrow from Saga’s post above, sometimes a burger is good enough, you don’t have to have steak every time.

Bay is not a great director. McDonalds does not make great food. Walmart is not a great store. Coronation Street is not a great TV show. Dan Brown is not a great writer. And yet they make all the money because to many other people these things are great. Oh, well. Back to my cave.

I think The Island was an archetypical Michael Bay Movie experience for me. That movie had a fantastic original script, great actors and a central premise that was right in my wheelhouse. And I very much enjoyed the first third of the movie or so.

And then… things started blowing up all over the place and it seemed like nobody cared about the plot anymore. I certainly lost interest. In the whole movie.

I always thought that this must have been a terrible experience for the screenwriter. To have written a really good movie, only for it to be rewritten by hacks (sorry, but that’s what Kurtzman and Orci are) and turned into Explodey Movie.

The Island is probably my favorite Bay film.

steveuk:

I’m not sure everyone who likes those things loves those things, but they do like them enough to spend money on them.

There’s a maxim in design that you 'Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good."

Bay’s films are (usually) good enough, for a lot of people, to be worth the ticket price. The things they like about them outweigh the things they don’t like. Bay and co. emphasise (as much as they can) the things that matter in that equation.

Or to borrow from Saga’s post above, sometimes a burger is good enough, you don’t have to have steak every time.

I don’t think everyone wants the same things from films. I would guess the vast majority of the public are just looking for a good time and don’t want to overthink it.